Enchantress . . . Me?
Soft firelight glowed in the living room. The gray logs had guttered into ashes in the hearth, and Paul, wrapped in his warm red robe, sat in a wing-backed chair and slowly drew on a pipe.
I gazed at his smoke-haloed head and saw someone warm, needing, wistful and yearning, as I yearned, and I wished. And being the fool I often was, I drifted toward him on bare feet that didn’t make a sound. How nice he’d wear our gift so soon. I wore a gift from him—a soft, turquoise peignoir of airy fabric that floated over a gown of the same color.
He started to see me there, so near his chair, in the middle of the night, though he didn’t speak to break the spell that was somehow binding us together in a mutual need.
There was a lot I didn’t know about myself, nor did I understand what impulse lifted my hand to caress his cheek. His skin felt raspy, as if he needed a shave. He put his head back against the chair and tilted his face to mine.
“Why are you touching me, Catherine?”
His question was asked in a tight, cold voice, and I could have felt rebuked and hurt, but his eyes were soft, limpid pools of desire, and I had seen desire before, only not in the kind of eyes he had. “Don’t you like to be touched?”
“Not by a seductive young girl wearing flimsy clothes who is twenty-five years my junior.”
“Twenty-four and seven months your junior,” I corrected, “and my maternal grandmother married a man of fifty-five, when she was only sixteen.”
“She was a fool and so was he.”
“My mother said she made him a good wife,” I added lamely.
“Why aren’t you up in your bed asleep?” he snapped.
“I can’t sleep. I guess I’m too excited about school tomorrow.”
“Then you’d better go to bed so you’ll be at your best.”
I started to go, really I did, for the thought of warm milk was still in my head, but I had other thoughts, too, more seductive. “Dr. Paul . . .”
“I hate it when you call me that!” he interrupted. “Use my first name or don’t speak to me at all.”
“I feel I should show you the respect you deserve.”
“A fig for respect! I’m not any different than other men. A doctor isn’t infallible, Catherine.”
“Why are you calling me Catherine?”
“Why shouldn’t I call you Catherine? It’s your name, and it sounds more grown up than Cathy.”
“A moment or so ago, when I touched your cheek, you flared your eyes at me, as if you didn’t want me to be grown up.”
“You’re a witch. In a second you change from a naive girl into a seductive, provocative woman—a woman who seems to know exactly what she’s doing when she lays her hand on my face.”
My eyes fled before the onslaught of his. I felt hot, uneasy, and wished now I’d gone directly to the kitchen. I stared at the fine books on the shelves and the miniature objects d’art he seemed to crave. Everywhere I looked was something to remind me that what he needed most was beauty.
“Catherine, I’m going to ask you something now that is none of my business, but I must ask. Just what is there between you and your brother?”
My knees began to click together nervously. Oh, dear God, did it show on our faces? Why did he have to ask? It wasn’t any of his business. He had no right to ask such a question. Common sense and good judgment should have glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth and kept me from saying what I did in a shamed, lame way. “Would you be shocked to hear that when we were locked up in one room, always together, four of us, and each day was an eternity, that sometimes Chris and I didn’t always think of ourselves as brother and sister? He attached a barre in the attic for me, so I could keep my muscles supple, so I could keep on believing someday I’d be a ballerina. And while I danced on that soft, rotten wood, he’d study in the attic schoolroom, poring for hours over old encyclopedias. He’d hear my dance music and come and stand in the shadows to watch. . . .”
“Go on,” he urged when I paused. I stood with my head bowed, thinking backward, forgetting him. Then he suddenly leaned forward, seized hold of me and yanked me down onto his lap. “Tell me the rest.”
I didn’t want to tell him, yet his eyes were hot, demanding, making him seem a different person.
Swallowing first, I continued with reluctance, “Music has always done something special for me, even when I was small. It takes me over and lifts me up and makes me dance. And when I’m up there’s no way to come down except by feeling love for someone. If you come down and feel your feet on the floor, and there’s no one there to love, then you feel empty and lost. And I don’t like to feel lost or empty.”
“And so you danced in the attic, and dwelled in your fanciful imagination, and came back to the floor and found the only one there to love was your brother?” he said with icy heat, burning his eyes into mine. “Right? You had another kind of love you reserved for your little twins, didn’t you? You were mother to them. I know that. I see that every time you look at Carrie and speak Cory’s name. But what kind of love do you have for Christopher? Is it motherly? Sisterly? Or is it—” He paused, flushed, and shook me. “What did you do with your brother when you were locked up there, when you were alone?”
Seized by panic, I shook my head, and pushed his hands from my shoulders. “Chris and I were decent! We did the best we could!”
“‘The best you could’?” he fired, looking hard and belligerent, as if the kindly, gentle man I knew had been only a disguise. “What the hell does that tell me?”
“All you need to know!” I flared back and flashed my eyes with temper as hot and red as his. “You accuse me of seducing you. That’s what you’re doing; you sit and you watch every move I make! You undress me with your eyes. You take me to bed with you with your eyes. You talk about ballet classes, and sending my brother to college and medical school, and all the while you imply that sooner or later you are going to demand your payment, and I know what kind of payment you want!” I took my hands and ripped open the peignoir so the skimpy bodice of the aqua nightgown was revealed. “Look at the kind of gift you gave me. Is this the kind of nightgown a girl of fifteen wears? No! It’s the kind of gown a bride wears on her wedding night! And you gave it to me, and you saw Chris frown, and you didn’t even have the decency to blush!”
His laughter mocked me. I smelled the strong red wine he liked to drink before retiring. His breath was hot on my face, his face very close to mine so I could see each strong dark hair that poked from his skin. It was the wine that made him act as he did, I thought. Only the wine. Any woman on his lap would serve—any woman! Teasingly he touched the peaks of both my nipples, skipping from one to the other, and then he dared to slip his hand beneath my bodice so he could fondle the young breasts that were fired with heat from his unexpected caresses. Then my nipples rose up hard and I was breathing just as heavily and fast as he was. “Would you undress for me, Catherine?” he whispered in a mocking way. “Would you sit naked on my lap and let me have my way with you? Or would you pick up that Venetian glass ashtray and crash it down on my head?”
He stared at me then, suddenly shocked to find his hand where it was, cupping my left breast, and he yanked his hand away as if my flesh burned him. He pulled the fabric of my frail peignoir together and hid what his hungry eyes had devoured before. He stared at my lips that were slightly parted and waiting to be kissed, and I think he planned to kiss me just before he gained control and shoved me away. At that moment thunder crashed overhead, and a lightning bolt sizzled jaggedly to crackle with fire as it struck a telephone wire outside. I jumped! Cried out!
As suddenly as he had withdrawn his hand, he snapped out of his fog and into what he was customarily—a detached, lonely man who was determined to keep himself aloof. How wise I was in my innocence to know this even before he snapped, “What the hell are you doing sitting on my lap half naked? Why did you let me do what I did?”
I didn’t say anything. He was ashamed; I coul
d see that now in the glow of the dying fire, and in the intermittent flashes of lightning. He was thinking all sorts of self condemning thoughts, chastising, berating, whipping himself—I knew it was my fault; as always it was my fault.
“I’m sorry, Catherine. I don’t know what possessed me to do what I did.”
“I forgive you.”
“Why do you forgive me?”
“Because I love you.”
Again he jerked his head into profile, and I couldn’t see his eyes well enough to read them. “You don’t love me,” he said calmly, “you’re only grateful for what I’ve done.”
“I love you—and I’m yours, when, or if, you want me. And you can say you don’t love me, but you’ll be lying, for I see it in your eyes each time you look at me.” I pressed closer against him and turned his face to mine. “When I was put away by Momma, I swore that when I was free, if love came and demanded of me I’d open my door and let it in. The first day I came I found love in your eyes. You don’t have to marry me, just love me, when you need me.”
He held me and we watched the storm. Winter fought with spring and finally conquered. Now it only hailed, and the thunder and lightning were gone, and I felt so . . . so right. We were much alike, he and I. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he softly asked, as his big, gentle hands stroked my back, my hair. “You know you shouldn’t be here, letting me hold you, touch you.”
“Paul . . .” I began tentatively, “I’m not bad; neither is Chris. When we were locked away, we did do the best we could, honest. But we were locked in one room and growing up. The grandmother had a list of rules that forbade us to even look at each other and now I think I know why. Our eyes used to meet so often and without a word spoken he could comfort me, and he said my eyes did that for him too. That wasn’t bad, was it?”
“I shouldn’t have asked, and of course you had to look at each other. That’s why we have eyes.”
“Living like we did for so long, I don’t know a lot about other girls my age, but ever since I was only table high, any kind of beauty has made me light up. Just to see the sun falling on the petals of a rose, or the way light shines through tree leaves and shows the veins, and the way rain on the road turns the oil iridescent, all that makes me feel beautiful. More than anything, when music is playing, especially my kind, ballet music, I don’t need the sun or flowers or fresh air. I light up inside and wherever I am magically turns into marble palaces, or I am wild and free in the woods. I used to do that in the attic, and always just ahead a dark-haired man danced with me. We never touched, though we tried to. I never saw his face, though I wanted to. I said his name once, but when I woke up I couldn’t remember what it was. So, I guess I’m really in love with him, whoever he is. Every time I see a man with dark hair who moves gracefully I suspect he’s the one.”
He chuckled and twined his long fingers into my unbound hair. “My, what a romantic you are.”
“You’re making fun of me. You think I’m only a child. You think if you kissed me it wouldn’t be exciting.”
He grinned, accepted the challenge and slowly, slowly his head inclined until his lips met mine. Oh! So this was what it was like, a kiss from a stranger. Electric tingles sizzled madly up and down my arms, and all those nerves that a “child” my age wasn’t supposed to have burned with fire! I drew away sharply, afraid. I was wicked, unholy, still the Devil’s spawn!
And Chris would be shocked!
“What the hell are we doing?” he barked, coming out of the spell I’d cast. “What kind of little devil are you to let me handle you intimately and kiss you? You are very beautiful, Catherine, but you are only a child.” Some realization darkened his eyes as he guessed at my motives. “Now get this straight in your pretty head—you don’t owe me, not anything! What I do for you, for your brother and sister, I do willingly, gladly, without expecting any repayment—of any kind—do you understand?”
“But . . . but . . .” I sputtered. “I’ve always hated it when the rain beats hard and the wind blows at night. This is the first time I’ve felt warm and protected, here, with you, before the fire.”
“Safe?” he teased lightly. “You think you’re safe with me, as you sit on my lap, and kiss me like that? What do you think I’m made of?”
“The same as other men, only better.”
“Catherine,” Paul said, his voice softer and kinder now, “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, and you three give me an opportunity to redeem myself. If I so much as lay a hand on you again, I want you to scream for help. If no one is here, then run to your room, or pick up something and bash me over the head.”
“Ooh,” I whispered, “and I thought you loved me!” Tears trickled down my cheeks. I felt like a child again, chastised for presuming too much. How foolish to have believed love was already knocking on my door. I sulked as he lifted me away from him. Then he gently lifted me to my feet, but kept his hands on my waist as he looked up into my face.
“My God, but you are beautiful and desirable,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t tempt me too much, Catherine—for your own good.”
“You don’t have to love me.” My head bowed to hide my face and my hair was something to hide behind as I shamelessly said, “Just use me when you need me, and that will be enough.”
He leaned back in the chair and took his hands from my waist. “Catherine, don’t ever let me hear you offer such a thing again. You live in fairyland, not reality. Little girls get hurt when they play grown-up games. You save yourself for the man you marry—but for God’s sake, wait to grow up first. Don’t rush into having sex with the first man who desires you.”
I backed off, scared of him now, while he stood to come within arm’s reach. “Beautiful child, the eyes of Clairmont are fixed upon you and me, wondering, speculating. I don’t have a gilt-edged reputation. So, for the health of my medical practice and the good of my soul and conscience stay away from me. I’m only a man, not a saint.”
Again I backed off, scared. I flew up the stairs as if pursued. For he wasn’t, after all, the kind of man I wanted. Not him, a doctor, perhaps a womanizer—the last kind of man who could fulfill my dreams of faithful, devoted and forever-green-springtime-romantic love!
* * *
The school Paul sent me to was big and modern with an indoor swimming pool. My schoolmates thought I looked good and talked funny, like a Yankee. They laughed at the way I said “water, father, farther” or any word that had an “a” in it. I didn’t like being laughed at. I didn’t like being different. I wanted to be like the others, and though I tried I found out I was different. How could it be otherwise? She had made me different. I knew Chris was feeling lonely in his school because he too was an alien in a world that had gone on without us. I was fearful for Carrie in her school, all alone, made different too. Damn Momma for doing so much to set us apart, so we couldn’t blend into the crowd and talk as they did and believe as they did. I was an outsider, and in every way they could all my schoolmates made me feel it.
Only one place made me feel I belonged. Straight from my high school classes I’d catch a bus and ride to ballet class, toting my bag with leotards, pointes, and a small handbag tucked inside. In the dressing room the girls shared all their secrets. They told ridiculous jokes, sexy stories, some of them even lewd. Sex was in the air, all around us, breathing hotly and demandingly down our necks. Girlishly, foolishly, they discussed whether they should save their bodies for their husbands. Should they pet with clothes on or off—or go “all the way”—and how did they stop a guy after they had “innocently” turned him on?
Because I felt so much wiser than the others I didn’t contribute anything. If I dared to speak of my past, of those years when I was living “nowhere” and the love that had sprung up from barren soil, I could imagine how their eyes would pop! I couldn’t blame them. No, I didn’t blame anyone but the one who’d made it all happen! Momma!
One day I ran home from the bus stop and dashed off a long, venomous letter to my m
other—and then I didn’t know where to send it. I put it aside until I found out the address in Greenglenna. One thing for sure, I didn’t want her to know where we lived. Though she had received the petition, it didn’t have Paul’s name on it, or our address, only the address of the judge. Sooner or later though, she’d hear from me and be sorry she did.
Each day we began bundled up in heavy, woolen, knitted leg-warmers, and at the barre we exercised until our blood flowed fast and hot and we could discard the woolens as we began to sweat. Our hair, screwed up tight as old ladies’ who scrubbed floors, soon became wet too, so we showered two or three times a day—when we worked out eight or ten hours on Saturdays. The barre was not meant for holding onto tightly, but was meant only for balance, to help us develop control, grace. We did the plié’s, the tendus, and glissés, the fondus, the ronds de jambe a terre—and none of it was easy. Sometimes the pain of rotating the hips in the turnouts could make me scream. Then came the frappes on three-quarter pointe, the ronds de jambe en l’air, the petite and grande battlements, the developpes and all the warm-up exercises to make our muscles long, strong and supple. Then we left the barre and used the center arena to repeat all of that without the aid of the barre.
And that was the easy part—from there on the work became increasingly difficult, demanding technical skills awesomely painful to do.
To hear I was good, even excellent, lifted me sky-high . . . so there had been some benefits gained from dancing in the attic, dancing even when I was dying, so I thought as pliéd un, deux, and on and on as Georges pounded on the old upright piano. And then there was Julian.
Something kept drawing him back to Clairmont. I thought his visits were only ego trips so we could sit in a circle on the floor and watch him perform in the center, showing off his superior virtuosity, his spinning turns that were blurrily fast. His incredible, leaping elevations defied gravity, and from these grand jetés he’d land goose-down soft. He cornered me to tell me it was “his” kind of dancing that added so much excitement to the performance.
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 47
